


Orphan + Timelord

by InsanelyMe



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Other, a new companion really, just sort of an insertion story, not an AU????
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:04:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4069477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanelyMe/pseuds/InsanelyMe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has just regenerated. With the nighttime air bearing down on him, he makes a quick promise to a young girl with fiery red hair and a crack in her wall. She waits in the garden, but he doesn't return. Not for years.<br/>What happened?<br/>MD, a quick-witted sixteen-year-old with a journal of all the Doctor's secrets and adventures, has just been thrown through a crack in space and time--a split in the very fabric between universes. Quickly realizing she's in over her head, she recruits the Doctor's help to make the trip back. It should be impossible, but she's determined. While a way back home is searched for by Jack Harkness and what's left of Torchwood, MD joins the Doctor on his travels about this new universe she's in.<br/>Amelia Pond will not see the Doctor for years. So what happened to him--and to the adventurous, strangely knowledgeable MD--that even the Doctor would never mention again? Will she make it back to her universe and time, or will MD be another tragic story the Doctor never tells?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Finding of Jack Harkness

"The universe is big, it's vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles."

 

She remembered one thing, and one thing alone. There was no sound in her ears, no ground beneath her feet, no darkness nor light when she blinked—if she was blinking. It was hard to tell when her eyes were open and when they were closed, but either way she saw nothing, and it was the most indescribable nothing to ever be. And then came a light, white and strong and shaped like it was seeping through a crack in the wall, and she slowly felt herself drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Then she was here. There was emptiness, then light, then presence.

He was traveling. Just—traveling. There was no one with him, not a living thing to push back the silence other than himself and his ship. That was how it had always been, though. At some point or another, it was just him and the TARDIS, and there was nothing to be done about it. Something always went wrong.

Pressing a couple of buttons and pulling down some levers, he wasn't particularly sure where he was going. He didn't really care. When you're going to die, you could do anything, and you could be surrounded by a million people, but you would still be left with such a indescribable sense of nothing.

-Several days later-

It was a sunny day out in Cardiff, which was quite the surprise what with the current weather, and everybody seemed happy. There was a particular bounce in everybody's step, and maybe it was the weather, but it set the girl on edge—the lonely girl, drifting anxiously down the street.

Not that people shouldn't be happy, she thought, but how can they be happy and ignorant when their universe is held together with Scotch tape and safety pins?  
She passed a gathering of other girls around her age, dominating the sidewalks as they flew down the street with their nose buried in their cell phones. Right, another side of her responded, because they're human. The race that never gave up and never died—they certaintly didn't look the part. But she couldn't complain; this was, more or less, the same as her universe, only a little twisted, a little different.

For one example, Torchwood was still in business.

Back where she came from, Torchwood had apparently been knocked out years ago. Her mother told her about it, but it's not like it was a secret: they'd been building Cybermen, human-robot hybrids of sorts. Ever since the collapsing of the 'bridge' between all the parallel universes (which she had also not been alive for)—an event that for years had closed off any connection between her universe and this one—it had just been a big, old, abandoned building. After a couple months, business was restarted, but they were much more open about their work. Now it was called the Túr Mac Tíre Dona Tower, but some still called it by its old name. But here... she knew someone who had travelled between universes once, and he said that a man named Jack Harkness was keeping the business running. So that's who she had to find.  
"I was born after everything cool happened..." she whispered into the air. Her life had been a little dull up until now, but what was happening to her was definitely not cool.  
It had been four days since she arrived in this universe, and she'd been camping all the while. In an annoying turn of events, she hadn't actually ended up in Cardiff. She'd ended up in Oxford.  
Oxford.

No matter, she'd hitched a couple rides and used some public transportation—the cheapest she could find—and, as said, camped. Normally, it doesn't take people four days to hike to Cardiff, but she had to make a few stops. London, mostly, which was really out of the way. She'd been spying on the parallel-universe-versions of people who were in her universe and some who apparently weren't, some who had stories that she needed to verify... just, people. She'd even helped along some bloke who looked exactly like...

It was him. That man was him, though perhaps a little younger. The man she needed to find. And even when she needed him, she hadn't disturbed him too much then. But it was him, she was absolutely positive.  
The man was tall with large, wondrous brown eyes and some dark hair to match, and was so thin that you could probably cut yourself trying to hug him. He was wearing a long, brown coat with a lot of pockets, and sometimes, he had to curl up in pain like something was tearing him up inside. It was dusk, she hadn't checked what the date was yet, and there he was, limping along the road like she couldn't see him. Like he couldn't see her. But he looked so familiar, she had to ask him something, so she went with, "Are you alright?"

This strange, strange man looked down at her (as she was quite short and he was so very tall) with what might be the saddest expression she had ever seen. It made her want to cry, but if she can hold it together after falling into another universe, she can certainly stay calm in the presence of... him.

"No," he said with blatant difficulty, "but I will be."

He turned around and started back towards whatever he'd been trying to limp to in the first place, groaning and clutching at his abdomen. When he nearly collapsed, she caught him and put a hand to his cheek.   
His skin was so hot, so hot, like it was going to burn right off.

"Jeez, you're roasting!" she exclaimed, and he shushed her, which was a little annoying. Her father did that to her sometimes. "You need a doctor."

He laughed—or choked—"I am a doctor. I'm the Doctor." Which made her recoil somewhat. "You need to go, I'll be fine, just a little different. I've justgot—agh!"  
"Woah, D-Doctor!"

He waved her away. "Just got one more person to visit. One more... Her..."

She gasped and hesitantly released him. Her mouth twitched with the desire to ask of him one trip, to go see the Her that was on his mind. MD couldn't, though. She had come here to find this Doctor, but she knew that now wasn't the right time. His death had to run its course, first.

"Well, then," she said thickly, "find her, mate. Everything'll be fine."

He gave her an odd look, but then turned away like he couldn't be bothered with such an shallow statement. But it was all she could say right then.

For a moment, they were both perfectly silent and quite still, just standing there in the cold, fading gray light of day. Before he hobbled off into the shadows, though, something made her jump up on her tippy-toes and kiss him on the cheek, just for good luck. A couple minutes after, she heard a certain grating noise from a couple alleys down, like a mixture of gasping, whooshing, and slamming down on the brakes after going really fast in a car. Quickly, she flipped through the small, deep blue journal that had been in her pocket until she found one little topic written in black ink that matched the word spinning around in her head: Regeneration.

And now she was here, in the shadow cast by the small, hole-in-the-wall building with a mission and with that odd night pushed to the back of her mind for a while.

"I'm gonna get meet the Doctor, and then I'm gonna get home," she said.

There was a heavy foreboding in her stomach, though, telling her it wasn't possible, as she stepped right-foot-first into the odd building. A heavy blast of regret had punched her in the stomach the moment she'd woken up in this new place, and she was running on the idea that her friends and parents would understand if she never came back. Maybe. She'd had to come to this universe.

The room was dim and sort of cluttered, actually, which was sort of strange considering this was the base for a top secret orginization. She approached the counter—covered in papers and books and just desk things, and with the sole person in the room behind it. That person was a man, sort of tall, brown-haired, stylishly dressed, and holding a sleek phone in his hand. Though his face was almost painfully polite, he seemed quite surprised and very disapproving of the fact that somebody was there.

It might be the fact that she was a slightly disheveled teenager in a strapless dress with a backpack on. Possibly.

"Can I help you?" the—secretary?—asked in what was clearly meant to be a courteous tone, but didn't really come out that way. The girl put her arms up on the counter-slash-desk and smiled brightly through her strong red lipstick.

"I'm here for Captain Jack Harkness, sir."

The secretary froze, and then glared at her. Touchy subject? she thought.

Eventually, he recovered. "Name?"

"MD."

"As in," the secretary cocked a brow at her, "a 'Medical Doctor?'" The girl huffed at the question that had been asked too many times.

"You asked for my name, not a title I can't actually receive at my age. My name is MD."

She started twisting her dark brown hair around her finger as he typed things into that phone so quick that she was surprised the phone could keep up with him.

"And your last name?"

"Unimportant."

"It's completely important!" said the secretary. "And why are you here, anyway? This is a private operation, and your a teenager. You should leave."

So he has a temper. Good to know.

Both clenched their jaws and cocked their heads angrily. The girl—'MD'—retorted, "Well, I'm an important teenager, what with my current situation, and it is of grave importance that I talk to him right now."

"Why? Why should I not call security?" This was such a secretive, pesky secretary. Finally, MD got too irritated.

"Because your universe has a breach!" she bit. Both went quiet for a moment. MD continued in a quieter but still stern voice, "And I was told to go to Captain Jack Harkness, and then we're all gonna need a doctor—the Doctor."

Which brought the secretary pause again. "The Doctor?"

"The one and only."

"Oh, just send her in. Any friend of the Doctor's is a friend of mine. Usually." The voice came from the all around, from speakers. MD wondered how much of the conversation he'd heard.

"Yes, sir," said the secretary grudgingly, pressing a button on the speaker that sat on his desk.

He then pressed another button on the underside of the desk, and a door ground open to the right. It would never have been noticable before, like it blended straight into the stone wall.  
MD strode right inside, grinning.

"So you're looking for the Doctor?" said Jack as he popped out of a door—a heavy metal door like you see on big bank safes—at the end of the brief hall MD had been walking down. She sucked in her breath: he was gorgeous. "What's a pretty young thing want with that old geezer?"

The first thing—of all things—she noticed first was his mouth, and not because of its perfect shape or color, but because of the way it was smiling. He was smiling at her like, she imagined, he smiled at most women and men and maybe aliens, and for a teenager, that really had her on high alert—in a good way and a bad way. Next were his angular features: his pin-straight nose and high cheekbones, the sharp line of his brow and his angular jawline. When she began to look at his carefully styled chocolate brown hair, though, he began to speak again, so she tried to focus.

"Your name is MD? Never heard that before. Does it stand for anything?"

He reached down, picked up her hand, and kissed her palm. Yeah, I most definitely like his lips, she thought.

"That's a secret," she replied warily, for even though Jack Harkness was heart-stoppingly attractive, he was charming enough that she knew he must be hiding something. In fact, she knew he was hiding a lot of things. A definite flirt.

Standing straight again but quite noticeably not moving to let her into the door he'd just walked out of, he asked with that ever-quick smile, "You're lucky I was in at the moment, I'm frequently... out. But what's a girl with no last name and some secrets doing at one of the most secure, secretive organizations on the planet, looking for a man that isn't supposed to exist?" His tone held a sarcastic, bitter edge, as if he hadn't meant a word of what he'd said.

"Do you have coffee here? I'm not in the mood for tea. Get me a coffee, and I'll tell you."

He pursed his lips, but the look in his eyes resembled humor. Blue-green eyes, it seems. Matches his v-neck shirt. A shirt so tight that it didn't leave much to the imagination.

"Alright, then."—unsure.

Smoothly, he walked past her—remaining within a close distance even though the hall was quite large—and they walked back out into the lobby, past the scowling secretary (who Jack named as Ianto), and back out into the street. They didn't say a word to each other, but continuously sent glances under their lashes at the other, observing one another. Eventually they arrived at a small, half-empty coffee shop.

"What would you like?" he said over his shoulder.

"Medium caramel latte, extra pump of espresso."

She let him pay. Her money was down to nearly nothing, and he was gentlemanly enough that she knew he'd cover the tab.

With his back to her, he waited at the counter, silent. Received the drinks. Put a sleeve on either cup. Like they were friends, like they'd done this a hundred times. She threw her pack down next to a chair and sat down, crossing her ankles. In the presence of one so dashing—snake-charmer or not—she was glad she'd worn her strapless dress. MD almost always wore dresses, and this one was blue-gray, tight, and ended just above mid-thigh, and over it she wore a large, black belt. The heels of her slim, black pumps made no noise as she tapped them on the ground. Not the normal attire one would go backpacking in, but she'd worn her best to visit Torchwood.

He sat down across from her, that smile still on his face, and handed her her drink. A cute little smile she'd been practicing slid onto her face, the facade of innocence. She tried the coffee; it was great, and quite the juxtaposition from the cheap things she'd been grabbing lately.

"So," Jack said. MD smiled. "You need the Doctor."

"And you need to know why."

"Well, of course." He leaned back, throwing his arm over the back of his seat and matching her grin. Engaging, child-like smile. Flawless physique. "Normally, people twice your age in positions far more important than mine shouldn't and don't know about the Doctor, let alone Torchwood. Yet here you are."

She popped the lid off her cup, blew gently on her coffee, took a sip, and set it down. "Yet here I am."

There was a tense beat of silence. Finally, MD got bored with all this dodging around.

"Look, Jack, how I know of the Doctor isn't your problem, it's why I need him. I have had an... existentially problematic past few days, and have gone through something that could endanger the other people of this universe, or could prove to be a problem of the universe as a whole." She looked down and swirled her finger along the rim of her cup. "While you may be a protector of this planet, incredibly experienced, immortal, and above all else, painfully handsome, you are not the warrior I need."

Jack clenched his jaw and put his had flat on the table. "How do you know about my immortality?" he asked quietly, staring her dead in the face. All the flirt and laughter had left his expression; it was all stone-cold business.

"It's not important. Now will you help me or not?"

For a moment, he merely looked at this well-dressed, odd, backpacking teen who knew too much. And she looked back, fearlessly, shamelessly, and waited for an answer. This was Captain Jack Harkness, a protector of the Earth, former time-travelling conman, and friend of the Doctor. He was one of the few—if not the only—man who could help her along because the Doctor wasn't just going to fall into her arms.

Jack took a deep breath, then sighed. "Okay. I'll help you."

MD put her face in her hand, murmuring, "Thank God, I actually thought you were going to refuse." Then she looked up angrily. "You were going to refuse a poor, helpless girl!"

It must have occurred to him quickly that she was on the edge of slapping him because he grabbed her hand again, and the smoldering look returned to his face. "I'm sorry, I was just doing my job." He must flirt himself out of plenty of situations, but with jeans that tight, it wouldn't be hard to do. 

And after the charm came the bouncing energy. He sprang from his seat, grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat himself.

"Now," he exclaimed, "let's get you that Doctor!"

They returned to the Hub, the second base of Torchwood, and MD was finally allowed into the secret room. When she walked in, it was so overwhelmingly familiar that her steps momentarily faltered. She'd never been in any Torchwood base, at least not in this universe, but the simple amount and type of technology was all she could think about—the computers and software, the weaponry, the rift manipulator. Hell, it was practically a turn-on.

"Holy shit, the rift manipulator!" MD squealed, practically bouncing over to the large machine that stood like a large pillar through the middle of the room. "I've only heard about this! Oh, the technology is magnificent—it's—it's fantastic!"

In utter awe, her hands had started running all along the rivets and planes of the machine as she peered into its wiring and—

"Hey, don't touch that!" two people yelled at once. MD turned.

One had been Jack, but the other was a tall, thin woman with black hair pulled up into a ponytail, a red leather jacket, and dark skin. She was absolutely lovely, and MD instantly recognized her: She looked incredibly like one of the drawings in her journal.

"We don't particularly like people screwing around with—"

"Martha Jones," she interrupted.

"What?"

"That's Martha bloody Jones!"

Martha took a step back, confused, and looked to Jack as if to say Where'd you get this loon? MD trotted up to her like a loyal puppy, took her hand, and shook it as joyfully as she'd messed with the rift manipulator. Her eyes were bright, and for her, Martha Jones was another valuable, rare piece of technology.

Smiling broadly, she said, "MD, Miss Jones, and it's an honor to meet you!"

"Well, um," Martha laughed, starting to look a bit pleased, "thank you."

"I mean, truly, it's such an honor, meeting you. All you've done, the woman who walked around the earth!" Martha's face grew confused and slightly cold at this, but she quickly composed herself. "The intelligence behind the scenes! And—"

"Yeah, okay, let's move along, Missy," Jack said with a hand jabbing into MD's back. She pouted and huffed, but she moved in the direction she was nudged in nonetheless, sending a dumbstruck grin and a wave back at Martha.

She was given a quick introduction to the others, Rhys and Gwen, who were very kind, but MD noticed two missing from the group. There was Ianto, Jack, Gwen—but who was Rhys? And where were Tosh and Owen? In this line of work... must be dead, she thought, and made the quick, smart decision not to ask about them. Eventually, the two ended up in Jack's office, and not the most astounding of all offices either.  
Before they did anything else, though, Jack left her alone for a minute. When he returned, he said he'd sent a message to the Doctor.

"Via psychic paper?" she asked, remembering a short message about that written in her journal (as she wrote down a lot of important things in her little, blue journal). It seemed to annoy him that she knew even about that.

After they arrived at the Hub, they didn't have to wait long. In that waiting, for as many tries as Jack made to get information out of her, to try and offer to help her situation himself, and to figure out how she knew so much, MD's answers were vague whenever she thought to spare one. It obviously frustrated him to no end.

Soon, however, there came the familiar gasping-shrieking-screeching sound from in front of the building, and then Jack and MD went out to follow it. What they found was what MD had only heard of in stories and myths, and only seen in her dreams. The bluest blue, the TARDIS stood proudly amongst the ignorant civilians walking past, and after a moment, the door flew open with a crack. Bright light shined from inside. A man walked out. Quite a raggedy man, in a torn blue button-up and tie, with deepset green eyes and a boyish smile. He also might have had some great hair, but neither of them could tell because he was also drenched in water.

"Is that the Doctor?" MD asked, even though she knew it was.

She was just having a little trouble believing a twenty-something-year-old man in soaked, torn clothes who looked like he was going to fall over was her knight in shining armor. Jack looked at her, and he looked more sad than horrified or happy or shocked.

"Must be."

The man stumbled up to the, his fingers twitching restlessly at his sides. "Ah, Jack, hasn't been too long, has it?" They embraced, but Jack seemed sort of tense, and the Doctor didn't seem to be to invested in it.

"No... Doctor. Only a few days," Jack replied. The Doctor laughed.

"Nonsense, I promised the Pond girl five minutes!" As if that made any sense.

"What—?" began Jack, but the Doctor wasn't listening. He turned to MD, smiling in an unsettlingly childish way.

"Hello there! I'm the Doctor, just the Doctor, the one and only!"

MD thought, Oh, this is gonna be good.


	2. Her Becoming an Orphan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MD, Jack, and the Doctor negotiate, with each one lacking key bits of information.

"Every lonely monster needs a companion."

 

"Well, he's... not what I expected," said MD to Jack in the moments when the Doctor stopped talking, which were few and far between. 

"...And there's this crack in Amelia's wall that glows and says things-What do you mean 'not what I expected?'" the Doctor asked abruptly. "I'm a time-traveling alien from the planet Galifrey, I'm not what anybody expects." He paused. "Why did I tell you that? Anyway, Amelia's crack in the wall says things and it's very dangerous, and I promised her five minutes, so this better be quick..."

Jack turned to her with that smile of his-and she could tell he smiled often-but there was a certain look of pain in his eyes as he spoke. "MD? Please explain your situation to... the Doctor."

She began. "Doctor... I've fallen through a slowly-closing crack in my dimension left from when you attempted to close the 'bridge' between parallel universes, and now I can't get back through to my home."

Though the Doctor had been talking the entire time she had, he froze when she was halfway through her sentence, and she knew he'd been listening all along. He seemed like somebody who paid attention to everything most people wouldn't, though that can sometimes mean he misses what's right in front of him.

Slowly, he turned to her, and though she knew that this was the same man that she had attempted to help on the road days ago, the man who'd had a long brown coat and dark brown eyes, she still found it shocking. For all she knew of regeneration, this body was completely different. Shorter, less thin, more energetic (granted, he was dying when he regenerated), bigger hair, less angular, different... personality. And she could tell all of that in the first two minutes.

"What's your full name?" he said suddenly, staring her dead in the face. He's handsome, she thought, of all things. Maybe it's a time-traveling thing.

"MD is my name, and that's it." She crossed her arms.

"Where are you from?" he continued this the moment she'd gotten her answer out.

Matching his quick tone, she answered, "London." And the Q-and-A session went back and forth for a good while as Jack watched silently from the side.

"What do you know about how you got here?"

"Exactly what I told you."

"And how do you know that?"

"My father's a scientist."

He snorted. "Scientists."

"Something funny?"

"Nope. Do you know what the date is?"

"May twenty-fifth."

"Parents?"

"Two of them, but they're unimportant right now."

"They could be very important."

"Why?"

"Because you may never see them again."

Which was when the questioning stopped. MD's jaw clenched tightly as she took a step backwards away from the stoic, blank-faced Doctor, and Jack put a hand on his shoulder and chastised, "Doctor!" But still, the girl and the traveler said nothing, and they merely stared at each other and waited for the other to react first. What all three, however, believed to be sad was that MD knew it was true.

After a deep breath, she said, "I realize that. I realize that my situation is very... tedious, and I need help. That's why I sent for you."

"But that's what I don't get!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands up and stalking off into the TARDIS, talking at a million miles an hour. They followed. "You don't know me, and you shouldn't even know of me, and you know so many things and yet you've failed to realize that if you should get back to your universe, you wouldn't even have been born yet!"

"Excuse me?" MD yelled back, but as she did, she took her first step onto the alien ship. Perhaps that was the moment that made her question reality.

The TARDIS was merely a police box to any outsider, but inside, it was utterly, fantastically brilliant. There were two floors, but halls sprouted off in every direction with so many doors that she lost count, and there was light and glass and metal everywhere. In the center was some kind of engine, and it stretched all the way to the ceiling like a giant pillar, with screens popping out of it, an entire control panel that looped around it with hundreds of buttons and levers and random things on it, and as the control panel was glass, she could see wires and light shining up from under all the controls. There was so much going on that  
she didn't know what to think.

"You've done some remodeling, Doc..." muttered Jack, and he didn't seem too happy about it. MD wondered just what his bad mood was about-for a moment, but then she remembered what her bad mood was about.

"What do you mean I'm not born yet, of COURSE I was born! I was there!" she continued, following the Doctor up the stairs, towards the control panel.

He began pressing buttons and pulling down screens and doing a whole lot of nonsense. She suspected he just needed something to keep himself busy. For a moment, he disappeared around the other side of the engine, and she followed him in irritation. I'm looking for someone who can take me home, not make stupid remarks and speak all day, she thought, although she wasn't so sure if what she was actually looking for was someone to take her home. But she hadn't gotten around to explaining that part yet.

The Doctor suddenly turned and walked right up to her so that their faces were close. "You said you know what the date was," he said at his rapid pace, "and you said May twenty-fifth, but of what year?"

"Um, twenty twenty-nine?" she said in a voice that screamed Duh, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. What idiot doesn't know the year?

From across the TARDIS, Jack spluttered, "Wait-but-what?"

"Yes, Jack," the Doctor looked at him and smiled, "she comes from the year two-thousand twenty-nine, two-zero-two-nine, and she doesn't even realize that that's not where she ended up!" MD huffed.

"Uh, 'she' is a little disoriented and really angry, so please explain!"

The Doctor suddenly pulled out a little metal contraption from his pocket-the sonic screwdriver-and pointed it MD, then he pressed a button and it lit up and started buzzing. When he stopped, two tiny panels opened up on it and he read something off some kind of screen that must be on it. She was even more confused by it, not because of what he was doing, but because the look of this sonic screwdriver didn't match the drawings in her journal. Maybe it changes when he regenerates? The panels closed and he put it back in his pocket, but then he whipped out a pair of old-fashioned 3D glasses (the cardboard kind with red and blue lenses), put them on, and looked at her.

"Well, she's not lying-"

"Oh, really?" she hissed.

"-She has traveled between different universes, there's residue all over her. And she is a sixteen-year-old human, but how on Earth did she just fall through a link between her world and ours-albeit, our world twenty years before-and why is there even one left? The bridge between universes was closed when I sent the Daleks and Cybermen back into the void-permanently." He went back to his control panel, pushing buttons and doing random things. "What am I missing, what am I missing?"

MD took that as her chance to shine.

"You did send the Daleks and Cybermen back, and you did close the bridge, but as you know there were certain cracks left that revealed a way to travel to or contact somebody within a parallel universe. What you didn't know was that they all didn't close as quickly as you believe." She began wandering around, looking away, observing things, to make it look like she knew this stuff off the top of her head, though she had studied it for a while now. "All pieces left of the bridge are closing, granted, just incredibly slowly, and nothing within the void can use them to escape, and these breaks are so small or weak that, usually, they don't reach through all the universes and tend to link only two or three. The one I used to come here had been discovered and studied for a while, and they even had to call in some blokes who have apparently traveled in time and space to understand it. What they didn't know was that while the link could guide me here, I have found no way for it to take me home, and what I don't know was how I ended up twenty bloody years before the time I left!"

When she turned around again, both men were staring at her, and she couldn't tell if they were dumbfounded or admiring her intellect. It made her feel a little taller, and she hopped up onto the railing that lined the raised platform around the engine (she was really going to have to ask him what it was called). Arrogantly, she raised her eyebrows and waited for a response.

"Well, yes, that all sounds... rather true," said the Doctor after a while. The way he looked at her made her uncomfortable-not because it was innapropriate or harsh, but because it so blatantly seemed like he was trying to figure her out or solve her like an equation.

Jack interrupted, "I haven't seen a companion do that since the 'Doctor-Donna.'"

The Doctor obviously wasn't very happy to hear that, and he looked as sad as Jack had earlier when it was said. Doctor-Donna... MD thought. That sounds familiar...

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "The Timelord-human hybrid! I'd almost forgotten."

She had found out about Doctor-Donna recently: Donna was a human who used the regeneration power left in one of the Doctor's preserved, severed limbs to gain the knowledge of the Doctor and become a hybrid. Apparently, it hadn't ended up too well, but her sources only told her so much, and this all happened quite recently, if it actually was twenty years previous to her present-day.

"Yes, yes, the Doctor-Donna!" A vein pulsed at the Doctor's temple, and his voice held enough anger to make the other two jump. He sighed. "In relevance to the more important matter, the traveler, I think I may have a clue of what made you end up here, in this time. You've been here a couple days, correct?" She nodded. "Yes, of course you have, I saw you the night I regenerated, I don't know how I forgot that. You kissed me."

"On the cheek," she said to Jack's horror-struck expression. It calmed him, and something occurred to MD at that moment so obvious she wanted to smack herself for not realizing before. Jack loved the Doctor. No wonder he's uncomfortable around this new regeneration.

"Oh," he breathed.

"Yes, whatever, you kissed me," the Doctor plowed on, "and that was right after-oh, of course. Of COURSE!" A look of pure elation overcame his face, and he threw his hands up in the air. "Right after the Timelords used the power of the diamond to travel all the way to our time! Such a major twist in time has got to have effects, effects so large that when you came to this universe without any special ship to guide you through time, time literally guided you here! Brilliant!"

He continued muttering things, seemingly trying to explain everything to himself (as he quite obviously found himself to be the most important being in the room), as MD and Jack slowly shifted closer and closer together.

"Wait-what?" she asked. Instead of the Doctor answering, though, Jack turned to her.

"Earlier, a man called 'The Master'-do you know him?" he said, and she nodded. The chapter in her journal on the Master was recently revised with his latest plot and demise. "Yeah, well, he used this special Galifreyan diamond as a power source to bring his people, the Timelords, out of their locked time period-as they were eternally locked in a time bubble, fighting the Daleks-and into our world. The Doctor... got rid of them, but it was quite the bend in time and space. I think what he's saying is that all that time traveling and shifting and whatnot was such a rift or explosion in time that it sucked you in, like an iron fillament to a magnet-"

"Or like an space ship into a black hole!" the Doctor put in, appearing next to them so suddenly that MD jumped. Jack didn't. "Otherwise, without the proper technology to help you travel, you could've ended up surounded by Hath on a distant space station five million years in the future!"

"Hath?" she asked.

"Hath! Lovely fellows, look like fish or something, but they walk and talk and dress like humans-" He put a hand on his own clothes, and it must have occured to him then and there that he looked as if he were attacked by a shark. "I need new clothes!"

"It's about time you noticed," Jack said.

"Well, new body, new style! That's always tedious..."

He started running off, up the stairs, and into one of the halls in search of something to wear. The others followed, and after asking the TARDIS where all of his old costumes and clothes were (which scared MD breathless when a hologram popped up and told them), they were finally led into a small room with blue walls and a metal floor. A circular staircase in the middle of the room seemed to lead down a dozen floors. Also, there were several racks strewn across the floor with clothes draped over them, most knocked over or thrown around.

"Looks like the pool wasn't the only thing getting tossed around," the Doctor mumbled.

He began sorting through the disarray, and after a moment, he dug out several pieces of clothing. She couldn't tell what they were, but a moment later, the Doctor began taking off his shirt with his back to them. It dropped to the floor, just strips of worn blue cloth.

"You can turn away if you need to." 

Jack didn't, and the Doctor either didn't care or didn't notice. MD, on the other hand, immediately spun around, smacking her hand over her mouth in shock. There was something very awkward and familiar about it that Jack noticed, almost as if she couldn't bear the idea of seeing the Doctor naked. Like she was grossed out. Teens.

The Doctor took off everything, which seemed to brighten Jack's mood significantly, if not dampen MD's, and then he quickly put on pants and trousers and a new shirt and a jacket that looked like it should be on an elderly man. Then again, he is about a thousand years old, she thought. And while his movements seemed rushed, she believed that it was not out of modesty or embarrassment, but simply because this Doctor had the energy of a child on Christmas and never really stopped, as one would with the perserverance and lifespan of a near-immortal.  
He turned back to them, grinning, holding two ties against his chest, one red, one blue. "Which one?"

"Niether," said MD as Jack said, "Red."

"Trust me, sweetheart, I know this," Jack continued.

She laughed, flipping some hair over her shoulder. "Trust me-my best friend is a fashion major."

MD practically dove head-first into the mismatched mountain of motley clothes and costumes, giggling. The Doctor waited surprisingly patiently while Jack tapped his foot, no doubt wishing the Doctor had listened to him instead.

About thirty seconds later, she resurfaced with a small, dark red scrap of cloth in her hand: a bow tie. She was awfully proud of her find, while Jack smiled uneasily (as if the decision was of any significance). The Doctor, on the other hand, immediately swept her out of the sea of clothing and swiped the bow tie from her hand.

"Oh, that's brilliant, that's fantastic!" he gushed, holding it up to the light like he was waiting for it to sparkle in the TARDIS's light. "That's cool!"

"Cool?"-from Jack.

"Cool!"-from MD.

Unexpectedly, she snatched the bow tie back from him and began fastening it around his neck for him. As if this had been happening for years, the Doctor tilted up his chin and adjusted his collar for her.

"Alright, Mister and Missus Doctor, let's get this problem sorted out," Jack interrupted.

The other two smiled, but all three actually realized what a situation they were dealing with. Only the Doctor, however, knew exactly what they could do about it. What did he tell her? What could he tell her? Any other time... this would have pained him less, but of course this little girl had to show up at door. That Amy Pond child was waiting for him, too, even if he did have a time machine, he didn't fancy standing her up.

They reached the main room once more, and MD said, "Alright, your arse is covered. Now can you please help me?" And she swore she saw him blush.

"Look, MD, you say that you couldn't see the split through the void after you traveled through it? That it was closing when you fell through?" he asked her. She nodded as she and Jack sat on the metal-and-glass steps. The Doctor remained pacing. "Then you can understand when I saw I am positive it's closed behind you, this break in time and space, and that there is no possible way to travel back through it."

"Of course, but the researchers were nearly positive that it couldn't be the only one. They'd be studying it for nearly seven years when they confirmed it."

She smiled brightly, but beneath that the Doctor and Jack could see a teenage girl who was years and universes away from her home. Something about it reminded Jack of the Time Lord himself. A warrior's smile.

"Look, sweetheart," Jack told her softly, putting a hand on her shoulder, "I wouldn't put too much faith in scientists."

"My father is no ordinary scientist!" she snapped, her blue eyes flaring. "And my mother is the most experienced astronomer of our age, you immortal foot soldier!"

"I didn't mean-" he tried, and kept himself from wondering again how she knew of even his immortality.

"No, no, I knew exactly what you meant. For two men dedicated to saving humanity, you have very little faith in it." She turned to the Doctor. "Now, tell it to me straight-will you bring me home, Doctor?"

There was a beat of silence. The beat of four hearts all pulsing with blood simultaneously.

"Look, um, MD, the way things are-"

"You can't." She didn't even wait for him to explain. "You're afraid you'll rip the void open."

She sprung off the stairs and walked straight up to him, her face brandished with raw fury and hatred, and Jack added something to the short list of similarities between her and the Doctor. Passion, and anger.

"I could release the entirety of the Dalek and Cyberman army upon the universe! I cannot risk these well-being of humanity and countless other species for the sake of one young girl!" the Doctor said back, on the brink of losing his patience completely.

"You've done it before!" she growled and turned away, then stormed quietly from the TARDIS.

"Jack, where did you find this girl? There's got to be something we're missing, so much we're missing, and she knows everything! She knows more than anybody should! Me and the TARDIS and the void and my girls and-" For a moment, he froze, his face wrought with an unreadable expression. But then he kept going. "She just pops up all alone, looking for somebody to drag through the universe, with a mission and knowledge and all this fire thinking she can do the impossible! It's mad, Jack, and I don't even know her real name. Is MD her actual name, even? I just..."

"Yeah," he snorted, "sounds familiar." 

In fact, far too familiar, but right now, there was a freshly orphaned-in a way-young girl running into a base of operations for alien-fighting time-travelers with a backpack full of who-knows-what, so Jack grabbed the Doctor by his suspenders and pulled him outside. They didn't have to go far, though, for outside in the blinding sunlight stood the girl herself, stoic, calm, collected, now with that mysterious pack slung over her shoulder.

"I'm coming with you."

It burst from her mouth, but it wasn't a question or a desire, but solid fact in her eyes.

"No," the two men said immediately.

"Yes."

"No."

"Deal with it!"

"No!"

"This isn't getting us anywhere." She hefted her bag a little farther up her pale shoulder and walked towards them with more class than any high-end business woman could ever muster.

"Doctor, Jack, I am homeless, friendless, and parentless right now, and my only hope is the man with the blue box. While I'm traveling about with you," she pointed to the Doctor, "we can travel space, attempt to find a way to my home, have a bit of fun, while you," she gestured to Jack, "can keep busy in your spare time looking for another crack in the universe-"

"I don't think you realize that cracks in space and time aren't like cracks in the sidewalk, MD," the Doctor put in, frustrated. "They're not everywhere!"

"They were still left over in my time! There must be some left, one left..." Though she didn't look quite so sure. "Anyway, if and when Jack discovers one-or maybe if we discover one ourselves-you can use your ship to transport me back to my proper time and dimension. That is my one hope."

The Doctor took a deep breath and placed his hands on the shoulders of this girl with the mind of a scholar and the stubborness of a mule. His mind was racing, flying through the stars and flipping through the pages of all the books he'd read in his time, trying to find some way to place her, or to understand how one slip of a child could be an enigma for which he had no solution. But he couldn't doubt her for being so young or so seemingly innocent-she must play a part in something. For all of his knowledge, she could turn out to be more important than any of them, which is exactly why he couldn't deny her.

"You know I can't guarantee your return," he whispered. She replied instantly and doubtlessly.

"But I can."

He shook his head. "How can you be so sure? What makes you think that we can just break the laws of time and space because you lost your way home?"

MD took a moment to respond to this, however, and she bit her lip in that second it took her to think. In her mind, she knew exactly what she wanted to communicate, and it wasn't too difficult to put into words, but for a heartbroken, millenium-old Time Lord and his faithful ex-conman companion to understand, she'd need to revise it somewhat.

"Because... because they're my family." Both men furrowed their brows, confused. "We're all connected, and we love each other. If people belong together, then they'll find a way to be together again, even if they don't realize it's happening." Abruptly, she smiled, but it was a sad smile. "And because you've done it before."

In that moment, MD reminded the Doctor of somebody long gone but not forgotten. Someone who was not unlike this girl, but with blonde hair and brown eyes and the heart of a lover. A woman he'd turned warrior. One who had had no intention of leaving her dimension, or him, behind. In the end, he'd left her. And he suspected that maybe MD was thinking about her, too, because she knew about everything. If this child believed that even though he couldn't save that damn blonde girl from being torn away from him and still looked up to him as her only hope, then she was either brilliant, or very stupid. She didn't seem the stupid type.

A few thoughts tumbled into the whirlwind of the Doctor's mind: But if she's right, then I didn't belong with her, with Rose, or with Martha or Donna or any of them. Because we aren't together.

"Alright, then. Climb aboard," he told her.

"Doctor, are you sure about this?" Jack said, that smarmy grin on his face. "You're letting her on the TARDIS, and you still left me behind after that fight against the Daleks on Satellite Five!"

"Are you still angry about that?"

"Obviously."

MD laughed as she burst into the TARDIS, full of hope for the first time in days, but as she looked back at this stranger in a bow tie and suspenders, she found herself wondering if she actually could trust this man.  
The Doctor she had researched was the dying man she had found a few days ago, stumbling along the streets, about to disappear. This man was... well, not really a man, but more of a child who knew too much to control.

But I have to have faith, she thought, frightfully determined. He's regenerated before. He's just... younger this time.

"Well then, farewell once again, Doc," Jack said cheerfully, giving his friend a salute and a hug. The Doctor returned it wholeheartedly, and she figured that Jack was getting used to this new Doctor already.

"I'll see you again, Captain," he replied.

Jack approached her as the Doctor began preparing the TARDIS. "And a farewell to you, miss."

He stuck out his hand, and whether he intended to shake her hand or kiss her palm again, she had no clue. Taking a leap of faith, she grabbed him by the lapels and yanked him down to her level, then threw her arms around his neck. The embrace was nice, warm and secure, like hugging an old friend. When she pulled back, one hand still knotted in his shirt, she pressed a kiss to her own hand and then pressed her hand to his mouth. When she released him, he began laughing, but the Doctor rolled his eyes.

"Everywhere you go, Jack," the Doctor mumbled. "You need a leash."

"She kissed me!" he protested, but he winked at her as he was walking out. To her, he said, "Stay safe, kid."

MD thought she heard him muttering about how 'Ianto would be jealous' or some nonsense, but she dismissed it.

When he was gone, lights started blazing and noises burst from the engine. "What do you call this-this whole thing?"

"It's the heart of TARDIS! Shouldn't you know that?" the Doctor said sarcastically.

"It's different from my drawings."

"Well, one, it's just been remodeled, and two, you shouldn't have drawing of it in the first place." He forcefully pressed down on a lever, and the entire ship started shaking. There was that familiar wailing sound surrounding them. "Now, where would you like it to take you?"

"Anywhere!"

Because until I can go home, she thought cheerfully, I have nowhere to be and everywhere to go.

Utterly fascinated, wondrous, MD grabbed the railing and kept a firm grasp as the ship took off, and for someone who had seemed so reluctant to have her accompany him, the Doctor made a flourish of taking off  
as if he wanted to impress her.

"Pond can wait, this is a time machine," he shouted as if that held any meaning to her, "and it is going anywhere!"


End file.
